40,000-year-old severed wolf's head discovered in Siberia

The prehistoric remains were found by a local man named Pavel Efimov in the summer of 2018, between June and August, in a remote area near a river - but the find has only just been revealed.

Russian and Japanese scientists have unveiled the first intact adult head of an Ice Age wolf species, which was preserved in permafrost for 40,000 years.

"This is a unique discovery of the first ever remains of a fully grown Pleistocene wolf with its tissue preserved", Albert Protopopov, from the Republic of Sakha Academy of Sciences, told the newspaper.

Although the discovery itself happened a year ago, it was announced in early June at the opening of a woolly mammoth exhibit at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo.

"This discovery is incredible", Julie Meachen, a vertebrate paleontologist and an associate professor at Des Moines University, said in an email to Gizmodo. It was also discovered the wolf was between two and four years old when it died.

The DNA examination will take place at the Swedish Museum of Natural History and the discovery was announced in Tokyo, Japan, at the Woolly Mammoth exhibition.

"We want to assess their physical capabilities and ecology by comparing them with the lions and wolves of today". Because the beast's fur and fangs are still intact, researchers at the University of Sweden are able to analyze tissue from the wolf, something that's usually not preserved in the fossil record.

Based on bones found in Siberia, both dogs and modern wolves are believed to have split off from a wolf ancestor at least 27,000 years ago.

The discovery was announced in Tokyo during the grandiose Woolly Mammoth exhibition. Scientists hope to clone the unusually well-preserved foal.